Bernd Schuster's Tactics

Earlier in the week, he was asked how he would set up his team against Barcelona.

The former Blaugrana captain joked, per COPE h/t Football Espana: “Against Barca, we will play with two goalkeepers, a bus and a high speed train.”

Although his tongue was firmly in his cheek when passing comment, we saw that Malaga did exactly that—the proverbial "parking the bus" scenario.

One could've expected better from a Schuster team given that he himself, back in 2012, told how that style of play was ruining the game—per Tom Conn from Inside Spanish Football.

Some might say it was a great defensive performance with two solid banks of four not allowing Barca much time on the ball.

What's clear is that as the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid get stronger, the "also-rans" will have to resort to such tactics to save the themselves from a fate such as that which befell Levante at Barca's hands last week.

Jordi Alba's Loss of Form

Misplaced passes were commonplace, and his usual zip was only in evidence on a few occasions.

A feature of Barcelona's play last season was the width that Alba provided down the left-hand side, but it appeared that it was a real effort for him to make those lung-bursting runs we have come to enjoy.

A couple of crosses aside, his contribution in both an attacking and defensive sense was not up to his usual standard.

It's hard to fathom why the player seems to have lost focus at such an early stage of the season.

Two poorly mistimed tackles right at the death almost handed Malaga the draw,and typified his error-prone performance.